To insure a standard 3 bedroom house, you will be paying the most in the borough of Westminster, with annual premiums hitting as much as £903. This staggering amount is 63 per cent higher than the second most expensive area to insure your home, Hull, which costs £552 a year.
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The reason that Westminster is almost double the price of it’s nearest contender in the insurance stakes is largely contributed to the fact that it is one of the most ‘dangerous areas’ in London, along with Hackney, Islington and Southwark.
This gap is highly likely to widen in the future as insurers continue to load premiums in the UK’s big urban areas. If you property is classed as falling within a ‘high risk’ area, whether this is because of crime, flooding or subsidence, you will end up paying the price for it through your insurance.
Big cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds all feature prominently in the survey, providing a marked contrast with the most inexpensive which are predominantly rural, countryside areas.
Richard Mason, director of insurance at moneysupermarket.com comments that, “The difference between the cheapest and most expensive areas is a massive 391 per cent, with a three bedroom homeowner in Bishops Castle, Shropshire paying just £185 a year.”
He goes on to cite some reasons for the differences in price across the country, “Home insurers look at the crime rate in an area, therefore your likelihood of getting robbed or burgled, the average property price, the affluence of an area and whether where you live could be affected by flooding or subsidence.”
“There are no hard and fast rules though, so an affluent area which is relatively free from crime may still suffer from high premiums because of the rebuild value of homes.”
Another anomaly that has been thrown up by the research is the correlation between car insurance and postcodes. A female Ford Focus driver aged between 45 and 55 will pay £2,634 for her annual insurance in Liverpool, but only £145 in York. Similarly, a man driving the same car will pay £2,406 in Wembley, Middlesex but the sum drops drastically to only £143 in Shrewsbury.
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Anyone who feels that their insurance may be too high based on the city they live in, rather than their individual circumstances, should look for an insurance provider who will take all the factors into account.
Mason finishes, “Consumers would do well to shop around and compare the market every year instead of renewing with the same insurer as this could probably save them a great deal of money.”
